Journey To Bethlehem Quotes

For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.

The sun began to set behind Bethlehem and the beams were breaking through some white and gray clouds. There was a slight and beautiful chill from the autumn air. I gave thanks for that beautiful day and for the fact that the sun does not know Palestinian from Israeli, Christian from Muslim or Jew, and Asian from American or African, and I asked myself: If the sun shines on all of us as one, how much more does the sun's Creator see and love us all as one?

Somewhere beyond the Christmas hustle and bustle, there lies a child in a manger; somewhere beyond the noise, there is a Silent Night.

Just like our story, the original Christmas tales were stories of searching, not so much for the lost, as for the familiar. Mary and Joseph sought in Bethlehem- the home of their familial ancestry- a place to start their own family; the three kings from the East journeyed beneath the sentinel star to find the King of Kings; and the shepherds sought a child in a place most familiar to them: a manger.

A SAVIOR IS BORN Psalm 8:9 (ESV) O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!   REFLECTION On this night, shepherds were doing what they always did, keeping an eye on Bethlehem’s sheep through the night. But everything was about to change, as heaven opened and the angel of the Lord appeared to them and declared that Jesus had been born nearby. What irony. The sheep these shepherds were raising would be sacrificed just a few miles down the road on Jerusalem’s altar. Yet the shepherds themselves could not enter the temple to worship even if they wanted to. Because of their profession, they were ceremonially unclean. They were outcasts in the very worship that their hands made possible. Yet, God chose the shepherds to receive the greatest news ever heard. God came to them because He knew the shepherds couldn’t make it to church. What does that say about the Gospel? What does it say about you? This magnificent night says that grace meets you where you are, and saves you while you cannot do a thing to save yourself. Tonight, celebrate that Christ has come. Not to a mansion, but a manger. Not to the high and mighty, but to the guys on the lowest rung of the spiritual ladder. And celebrate that God’s grace finds you wherever you are this Christmas and shows you the way upwards to the arms of Almighty God. MEDITATION FOR CHRISTMAS EVE

Like a great waterwheel, the liturgical year goes on relentlessly irrigating our souls, softening the ground of our hearts, nourishing the soil of our lives until the seed of the Word of God itself begins to grow in us, comes to fruit in us, ripens in us the spiritual journey of a lifetime. So goes the liturgical year through all the days of our lives. /it concentrates us on the two great poles of the faith - the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth. But as Christmas and Easter trace the life of Jesus for us from beginning to end, the liturgical year does even more: it also challenges our own life and vision and sense of meaning. Both a guide to greater spiritual maturity and a path to a deepened spiritual life, the liturgical year leads us through all the great questions of faith as it goes. It rehearses the dimensions of life over and over for us all the years of our days. It leads us back again and again to reflect on the great moments of the life of Jesus and so to apply them to our own ... As the liturgical year goes on every day of our lives, every season of every year, tracing the steps of Jesus from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, so does our own life move back and forth between our own beginnings and endings, between our own struggles and triumphs, between the rush of acclamation and the crush of abandonment. It is the link between Jesus and me, between this life and the next, between me and the world around me, that is the gift of the liturgical year. The meaning and message of the liturgical year is the bedrock on which we strike our own life's direction. Rooted in the Resurrection promise of the liturgical year, whatever the weight of our own pressures, we maintain the course. We trust in the future we cannot see and do only know because we have celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus year after year. In His life we rest our own. ― Joan D. Chittister, The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life - The Ancient Practices Series

Pitt arrived at the Broad Street Station of the Great Northern Railway just in time to catch his train to Lincolnshire. He slammed the carriage door as the engine started to belch forth steam and the fireman stoked the furnace, and with a roar and a clash of iron they moved out of the vast, grimy dome into the sunlight and began the long journey past the factories and houses and through the suburbs of the largest, wealthiest, and most populous city in the world. Within its bounds lived more Scots than in Edinburgh, more Irish than in Dublin, and more Roman Catholics than in Rome.

We are mad if we imagine that the God of love revealed in Jesus will bless us in waging war. That is madness! But it’s a pervasive and beloved madness. And I know from experience that it’s hard to oppose a crowd fuming for war. When we have identified a hated enemy, we want to be assured that God is on our side as we go to war with our enemy. And we believe that surely God is on our side, because we feel so unified in the moment. Everyone knows the nation is most unified in times of war. Nothing unites a nation like war. But what’s so tragic is when Christian leaders pretend that a rally around the war god is compatible with worshipping the God revealed in Jesus Christ. We refuse to face the truth that waging war is incompatible with following Jesus. We forget that God is most clearly revealed, not in the nascent understanding of the ancient Hebrews but in the Word made flesh. We forget that “being disguised under the disfigurement of an ugly crucifixion and death, the Christform upon the cross is paradoxically the clearest revelation of who God is.”6 We forget that “the worst day in history was not a Tuesday in New York, but a Friday in Jerusalem when a consortium of clergy and politicians colluded to run the world on our own terms by crucifying God’s own Son.”7 We forget that when we see Christ dead upon the cross, we discover a God who would rather die than kill his enemies. We forget all of this because the disturbing truth is this—it’s hard to believe in Jesus. When I say it’s hard to believe in Jesus, I mean it’s hard to believe in Jesus’s ideas—in his way of saving the world. For Christians it’s not hard to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity—all the Christological stuff the church hammered out in the first five centuries. That’s not hard for us. What’s hard is to believe in Jesus as a political theologian. It’s hard because his ideas for running the world are so radically different from anything we are accustomed to. Which is why, I suspect, for so long, the Gospels have been treated as mere narratives and have not been taken seriously as theological documents in their own right. We want to hear how Jesus was born in Bethlehem, died on the cross, and rose again on the third day. We use these historical bits as the raw material for our theology that we mostly shape from a particular misreading of Paul. In doing this we conveniently screen out Jesus’s own teachings about the kingdom of God and especially his ideas about nonviolence and enemy love.

Due to this decree, Joseph and Mary were forced to go to Bethlehem, where Jesus was eventually born. This was a journey of approximately 75 miles, a distance that Mary – then heavily pregnant – would not have been able to walk.

Even as it was fitting for them I appeared to them, and for you I appeared as you were able to see. 21:8For the Father of majesty does not have an image and form in this world,209 except I who am an epiphany from him, since I am his will, and his power, and his wisdom,210 since I am in my Father and my Father is in me.211

we follow Jesus because we believe that his life, death, resurrection, and teachings offer us the truth about life, strength for the journey, and hope in the face of despair. Following him doesn’t change our life situation, but it does change how we look at it and how we live in it.

I grew up close to Bethlehem and the only branch where I could attend church was the BYU Jerusalem Center. Palestinians living in the West Bank are not allowed into Jerusalem, so for years, I had to sneak into Jerusalem, getting shot at sometimes and risking being arrested so I could attend church services. The trip would take three hours and would involve me climbing hills and walls and hiding from soldiers. I felt that each Sabbath I was given the strength and protection I needed to get to church. I remember one Sabbath in particular. I was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting that week. However, the day before, we had curfew imposed on us by the Israeli soldiers. Curfew in Bethlehem is not something you want to break. It is an all-day long curfew and lasts for weeks sometimes. You are not allowed to leave your house for any reason. Anyone who leaves their house risks getting shot. For some reason, I felt that Heavenly Father wanted me to give that talk, but I wondered how He expected me to get to church! I mean, even if I were to manage to leave my house without getting shot, I did not have a car then. How would I find public transportation to get to Jerusalem? There was no one on the roads except soldiers. I decided to do all that I could. I knelt down and basically told Heavenly Father that all I can do is walk outside. That was the extent of what I could do. He had to do the rest. I did just that. I got dressed in my Sunday clothes, got out of our house and down the few steps out of our porch, and walked on to the road. Amazingly enough, there was a taxi right in front of my house! Now, we live on a small street. We never see taxis pass by our street, even during normal days. I approached the taxi driver and asked him where he was going. Guess where was he going? To Jerusalem, of course. Right where I wanted to go! He had others with him in the taxi, but he had room for one more person. The taxi driver knew exactly which roads had soldiers on them and avoided those roads. Then we eventually got to where there was only one road leading out of town, and that road had soldiers on it. The taxi driver decided to go off the road to avoid the soldiers. He went into a hay field. We drove in hay fields for about half an hour. It was very bumpy, dusty, and rocky. Finally, we found a dirt road. I was so thrilled to not be in a field! However, a few short minutes later, we saw a pile of rocks blocking that dirt road. I thought we would have to turn around and go back. Luckily, the taxi driver had more hope and courage than I did. He went off the dirt road and into an olive tree field. He maneuvered around the olive trees until he got us to the other side of the pile of rocks. I made it to church that day. As I entered the Jerusalem Center I reflected on my journey and thought, “That was impossible!” There was no way I could have made it to church by my efforts alone. The effort I made, just walking outside, was so small compared to the miracle the Lord provided. Brothers and sisters, we give up too easily, especially when something seems impossible or hard. In last week’s devotional, Brother Doug Thompson said that in order to complete our journey, we must avoid the urge to quit. We do this by seeking spiritual nutrients and seeking a celestial life. [5] If we continue trying, we will reach our goal. In your classes, make sure do your best! In your job, do your best! In your callings, in your home and in everything you do, do the best you can. The Lord will sanctify your efforts and make them enough if you approach Him in faith and ask for His power from on high.

Hope is the faint glimmer on the distant horizon. It keeps you moving on the journey of love. The closing scene of the first chapter of Ruth ends with a hint of hope: “And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest” (Ruth 1:22).

Our Advent journey, preparing our hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, takes us to the cross, where we remember that the Child whose birth we celebrate would be tortured and killed, and that on that cross he gave his life that we might receive life. He bore our sins that

Part of the problem is that the only known copy of the text is preserved in Syriac, a language used by ancient Christians throughout the Middle East and Asia, but one in which only a relatively small number of early Christian scholars are fluent.

But how do we know that the Syriac text of the Revelation of the Magi that we have was written earlier than the fifth century?

In the Syriac language, nouns can be either masculine or feminine, and in the Revelation of the Magi, “the Holy Spirit” is a feminine noun. Although it might surprise us today to think of the Holy Spirit as a female entity, this is exactly what Syriac writers of the second, third, and fourth centuries considered it/her.

Starting in the fifth century, however, Syriac writers began to treat “the Holy Spirit” as a masculine noun, under influence from Greek Christian thought. What this means, therefore, is that the Syriac language itself confirms that the form of the Revelation of the Magi that we possess must have been written earlier than the fifth century.

the Thomas episode is narrated in the third person, whereas the rest of the Revelation of the Magi is narrated by the Magi themselves, in the first person. Although such shifts in the perspective of the narrator are not unheard of in ancient Christian writings, this shift is especially abrupt and unexplained within the narrative.

Because of these reasons, I believe that the Thomas episode was a later addition to the Revelation of the Magi.

the Thomas episode was probably composed and added to the Revelation of the Magi around the same time and place as other Thomas legends were being written down—that is, around the late third or early fourth century in Syria.

As the Revelation of the Magi originally ended, the Magi and the people of Shir have all come to experience the presence of Christ, though they have done so completely without any of the trappings that we might associate with institutional Christianity.

Jesus of Bethlehem, your journey began in the womb, like ours. On this day, we remember how your teenage mother birthed the Prince of Peace. May we be more like your mother, birthing into the world more peace, justice, and love. Because if our pain can bring new life, it may be worth it. Amen.

Invite God to use your disappointments to accomplish God’s purposes.

Sometimes God asks us to be with people we don’t want to be with, to go to places we don’t want to go to, and to do things we don’t want to do.

God’s blessings are not about ease and comfort, but rather about the joy of being a part of God’s work, being used by God for God’s purposes, and being accompanied by God’s presence, particularly in the face of adversity.

God is still in search of You!

The Coming of God (originally published in 1982,

After all, it seemed likely that many early Christians did not even know the story of how Jesus was conceived, so why should the doctrine of the virgin birth be seen as a requirement of the faith?

Christmas is not about how much you buy or what you eat or whom you visit. It is about your willingness to say, with Mary, “Here am I, Lord. Use me according to your will.

God favors the humble rather than the proud. God’s greatest work in our lives may be difficult and challenging, and we may never receive recognition or the praise of others, but we are called to serve anyway, seeking nothing more than God’s satisfaction and glory.

we are reminded that God is often most profoundly at work in those times when we’re confused, broken, or wounded.

When I think of this story, I can’t help but think of the many immigrants, both legal and illegal, who flee to the United States either in fear for their lives in their home country, or in hopes of a better future. Jesus was a child taken into Egypt as an alien, a refugee.

Hope is a decision we make, a choice to believe that God can take the adversity, the disappointment, the heartache, and the pain of our journeys and use these to accomplish his purposes.

Let's tell the story," he said with authority, like he had been thinking of this for a long time, "of the night Jesus was born. But let's tell it our way. In our version, Mary and Jospeh will hitchhike all the way from some place like Louisville, wander along Highway 127 and then stumble into Ringgold sometime close to midnight. Worn out and dirty from their journey, they'll look for a place for Mary to have her baby. But will somebody in our small town, which, let's face it, was probably not all that different from Bethlehem, welcome a strange couple and embrace them in their time of need?" .... A bunch of teenagers were going to make their very own neighbors, their brethren in Christ, wonder if they would have been kind enough to give Mary a warm, safe place to birth our Savior and Redeemer, which I kind of doubted - remembering how Brother Hawkin's daughter had been hidden down in Texas for a good nine months while her good-for-nothing boyfriend strutted his butt around the county dating anybody with a skirt and drinking beers behind the high school on Saturday nights. ... And I felt like, for the first time, I wasn't the only one who was seeing the small-minded way of thinking here that people seemed to cultivate just as mightily as their gossip and their vegetables. Even Mrs. Roberta Huckster might be forced to consider if she was Christian enough to let some strange, young couple rest their heads on one of her beds covered with those crisply starched, white cotton sheets that had a big pink H monogrammed on the edge.

I will descend to raise them up with me in love and indivisible peace if they shall believe in me without doubt, and give thanks, and glorify through me the Father of that glorious majesty who sent me for their salvation.